An administrative law judge recommended Monday that a professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst be permitted to grow marijuana for research purposes, The Boston Globe[1] reported. While the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration could reverse the ruling, it is seen as an advance for research involving the drug, which has been limited by severe restrictions on when pot can be grown for research.

An article on Sunday in The New York Times[3] reviewing problems at the University of Phoenix has been much blogged about (and praised) by many academics. Phoenix issued a response[4] Monday, calling the piece "ridden with factual errors and misrepresentations." For example, the Phoenix response said that the university's graduation rates is in the 50-60 percent rate typical of many public universities, not the 16 percent cited by the Times, which Phoenix said came from only a small cohort.

The Prescription Project, which is supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts, on Monday announced a new campaign[5] against drug-related conflicts of interest in academic medicine. A publicity campaign and research efforts will seek to focus attention on the impact of academic medical centers receiving free products from the pharmaceutical industry.

The furor over the infamous Danish cartoons of Muhammad has returned -- this time at the University of Cambridge, in Britain, where a student editor is in hiding after he published the cartoon in a satire issue on religion, The Guardian[6] reported. The satire has led to a flood of criticism, not only for the cartoons, but for headlines such as "Ayatollah Rethinks Stance on Misunderstood Rushdie." Cambridge officials are investigating the situation and have removed the student editor from his housing and placed him elsewhere, for his own safety.